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DVDVRMM: R1 Match 30: SHIBATA vs. SEKIMOTO


SHIBATA vs. SEKIMOTO  

51 members have voted

  1. 1. CHOOSE

    • Katsuyori Shibata
    • Daisuke Sekimoto


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This is a lot like the lucha battles as both of these guys had years that should get them out of round 1. This one is brutal. Sekimoto is a fucking horse working around 200 matches for over 10 promotions. Shibata, a top 3 favorite of mine, only had a fraction of that. I'm gonna need the day to mull this one over.

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Battle of overrated guys who hit hard. I actually have a soft spot for sekimoto despite the fact that he's not very good, but I have to vote for the guy with the better match in a head to head like this.

So Go Shiozaki sucks because his strikes are weak but these guys suck because they hit too hard? Your thoughts on puro guys confound me.

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I didn't say either of these guys suck, let alone that they sucked because their strikes were good.

To me "overrated guys who hit hard" reads like you think the hitting hard is a bad thing. Like people only like them because STIFF! I think both guys bring more to the table. Not that I'll agree but how are they overrated?

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This is why I wanted to make sure I got to participate this year. I'd never heard of either one of these guys, and now I want to see more of both of them. Based just on the two matches above, I'm voting for Shibata. 

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I didn't say either of these guys suck, let alone that they sucked because their strikes were good.

To me "overrated guys who hit hard" reads like you think the hitting hard is a bad thing. Like people only like them because STIFF! I think both guys bring more to the table. Not that I'll agree but how are they overrated?

 

 

Short answer to this:

 

I can see how you would read it that way and in fact I think their stiffness is fetishized, particularly in the case of Shibata.  Hell his marquee match last year was basically your WAR slugfest staple, with people freaking out (myself included albeit to a lesser degree) about how stiff and violent everything looked.  So while I don't see stiffness as a negative trait (quite to the contrary), I do think it's a factor in why Shibata is rated so highly and in my view he's rated much more highly than his output merits which is really the point.

 

It's not that Shibata is bad.  If anything I was disappointed by his run last year.  I though Laughter 7 had potential as a team, and on paper he seemed like a guy who could have done a litany of interesting things and stood out a ton in modern New Japan....but he just didn't.  Aside from the first Ishii match I don't think he had a singles match all year I thought was better than pretty good, and much of his work I really didn't care for at all.  And a lot of it really came across as guys hitting each other hard for the sake of hitting each other hard (see v. Ishii the sequal, or even to a degree the Goto match which I didn't care for).  

 

Sekimoto is someone I like more than I think he is a good wrestler.  I think he gets overrated in part because he's a big meathead looking dude who you expect to be a Nakanishi clone, but he works much harder, has a ton of athletic spots, and often has to carry the burden of working against a wide variety of dudes in terms of shapes, style, and sizes.  Having said that Sekimoto usually only has one match a year that I think is a really good match and this year was no exception.  For the most part I think his matches are just there, and in part because of his frame and the way he's booked he is one of the worst guys in modern Japan when it comes to blowing off body part work and/or drastically underselling it.  

 

I actually think both guys could be a lot better than they are, but obviously what they do works for them, and there is no reason for them to cater to my interests.  Having said that I do think both guys are overrated.  

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With Shibata the one thing I don't understand is his schedule. For years I wished he would come back now I wish he would work more shows. I think the time away might be part of his current mystique. I agree that Laughter 7 was a disappointment, they should have won the tag titles. He just brings a certain aura of danger to any match he's in.

I notice the selling problems in Sekimoto from time to time but like most selling issues in Japan I just whisper to myself "fighting spirit, fighting spirit." I think how hard he works helps me look past spotty selling. I know what I'm getting into watching Strong BJ.

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